Deck Repair

[ButchL]

I have a glen-l amigo sailboat strip planked with 3/4 inch cedar, west system epoxy sealed. It was built in 1990. The hull design is the 22 ft. LOD Glen-L Amigo design. The boat design (the rest of the boat) is almost exactly the same as the Pardey's Seraffyn (Lyle Hess).

Since I bought her I had quite a bit of leaking through the deck and the top of the deck house. Suspecting rot in the plywood subdeck, I had a trailer built for her, hauled her to my back yard, and built a bow roof shed over her.

The deck is 1/4 inch bare teak ( straight laid ) epoxied and screwed to a 1/4 inch inch plywood subdeck. Epoxied on the underside of the plywood is 3/8 inch hemlock wainscotting. The deck house top is 3/8 inch hemlock wainscotting and on top of that is 1/4 inch plywood with a layer of fiberglass epoxied onto the plywood.

I've removed most of the deck teak and am working on removing the plywood under it, 3/4 of which is rotted. Though I have heard bad things about
hemlock, I see no rot in the hemlock. It looks great other than some checking.

I've read most of the old forum messages about teak decks and teak on ply and also two articles from WB - "Building Cabins and Decks" by Arch Davis WB 133 and "Teak Decks on Plywood Subdecks" WB 147 by Iam Bruce. I'm still not sure
what to replace the deck with. I'm not planning on removing the hemlock since it still looks good.

As far as wood replacement over the hemlock, I can use 1/2 inch teak only, two 1/4 inch layers of plywood, or the original 1/4 inch teak on 1/4 inch plywood. I plan to CPES and cover all wood (except teak of course if I use it) with epoxy. I might want to put a layer of fiberglass over the hemlock or if I cover with plywood, the last layer of plywood. I like the looks of bare teak and it's non-skid properties though I'm not so sure the straight laid deck fits with the lines of the boat. I like the structural strength of
plywood.

As far as fastening the wood layers to the hemlock, I could use screws as was originally done, polysulfide or 5200. I don't want to use screws if possible to fasten the new deck to the hemlock because it appears that this is how the water got into the ply. It would be nice not to use teak because of the expense. Ultimately of course I want the deck to be structually strong as possible, leak proof, good looking, and non slippery.

Any suggestions on what would be the best way to go?

Are there any other options?

Butch

[Art Read]

Tough choice, ain't it? Sounds like you've researched your options pretty thoroughly already. I can tell you what I did, (5/16 teak over 9mm sapele ply, bedded in 5200 with no mechanical fasteners through the teak. (Ply bedded in dolphinite, screwed, bunged and epoxied before laying the teak) Seams filled with Sika Teak deck seam compound. (Since "discontinued" :confused: )

What would interest me most is knowing why the original deck failed so soon. Were the deck seams/bungs kept up? Fittings installed improperly? What kind of plywood was used originaly? Can you tell WHAT went wrong from the nature of the damage? I gotta tell you... I don't much like hearing about a deck like that failing after only 10 or 13 years! :eek:

[ButchL]

Art, how old is your deck? Any problems? Would you do it again the same way?
My boat is well built using good quality wood - except the plywood. I don't know what kind of plywood was used, but it appears to be of poor quality. The water seems to have gone through the cracks in the polysulfide seams between the teak and into the plywood through the screw holes. The bungs look good.

Butch

[JimD]

Butch, just a possibility, but if that wonderful teak is screwed into ply underneath are the screws bedded in anything? dipped in epoxy, 5200, silicon goop or anything else waterproof before being driven? I'm wondering if water didn't slowly leak in around the screws and get trapped in the plywood. A few years of that sounds like you might end up with the rot you describe. If you've been able to salvage that teak it would be a shame not to re-use it.

Also, buddy, i've just started on an amigo, there is quite a bit of interest in this boat, so any pics, any info or thoughts at all would be greatly appreciated by myself and i suspect a few others on the forum.
jim

[ButchL]

Jim

I assume the screws were embedded in epoxy. I don't see any evidence of anything else used. But I'm not sure since I didn't build her. She was built by Bill Stevens of Meridian Connecticut. I kept some of the teak but it is too thin to re-use for the deck. I had to rip off most of it because the screws were too corroded to back out. Will post pictures over the weekend.

Butch

[Peter Malcolm Jardine]

Tell me again how the teak is fastened to the plywood... epoxy? The boat may have fractured some of the deck joints with expansion and contraction. After that the water gets in easily... what did the plywood look like underneath... totally watersoaked, or could you see a water pattern? I know some of the folks here like epoxied decks, but I am still suspicious of a hard joint in an area that will tend to move a fair bit. Sure there are other opinions

[JimD]

I put a plywood deck on my Glen-L Minuet, fiberglassed it, started to paint it, didn't like the look, so took the paint off and epoxied cedar strip over the glassed ply, then glassed the cedar. The boat is still too knew to tell if I did a good job concerning rot but its hard to imagine much water penetration after all that.
jimd